


Lolina, Сладкая моя.

by angelica_barnes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Multi, Pining, bad Russian translations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 14:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 12,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14427126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_barnes/pseuds/angelica_barnes
Summary: Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter had a daughter in 1945, born after Steve went into the water. He never knew she existed, but HYDRA knew, and so they take her when she's three years old and freeze her when she's five years old. This is the story of how she ended up happy, with a family, and how Steve and Bucky took eighty years to get together but they at least finally did.





	1. Prologue : A Captain Dies, The World And A Woman And A Lost Man Grieve

There was that night that she bedded him. It’d been quiet, serene, and he’d been so gentle with her. His best friend was in the bar nearby, nursing a drink far too strong to be perfectly fine; little did they know. More on that later.

She took his sweet virginity, or so she thought; you’ll see. A few nights after, and she’d taken him again, pulling him in by the tie this time, and his best friend watched with sad eyes. In the corner, they never saw him; at least she never did.

“Tell me you love me,” she murmured, soft and low into the skin just below his left ear, and he moaned as she kissed the vein there.

“I love you,” he panted. “I love you, Peggy Carter.”

And she loved him. And outside the door, in the hallway, his best friend stood with an empty bottle hanging loosely in his fingers. It slipped as did the tears from his eyes, and Bucky Barnes collapsed against the wall and for the first time wished for death; his wish would never be granted, and for good reason - fate doesn’t play around.

They didn’t hear him, too caught up in each other, though she found him passed out in her lover’s bed later on, fully clothed and curled into a ball, and she didn’t touch him. It felt dirty, invasive, and his grin was bright with clouds covering the real sunshine while he disguised the rain with some sunbeams’ reflections. His eyes were thunderstorms that went on for days, and soon morphed into a hurricane when she kissed her lover after the battle; she could see the stars in his eyes when he stared at her lover, hers.

He disappeared, and her lover took to rum and forgetting, and he tried to heal and grapple with it all in secret, and she pitied him. They would never find a body, never bring her lover the peace he needed, and she felt as if it was somehow her fault, the sparkle missing from his smile.

“I love you, Steve Rogers. I love you, my darling Captain America.”


	2. Chapter One : The Days After, A Woman Cries

The test, Peggy takes five days to build up the courage to take. When she does, she crumples, and a man they call Dugan catches her and calls for medical. She doesn’t know what pushes her to keep the child, to birth this baby, but perhaps it’s that the Colonel asks her if it’s Captain Rogers’ and she can’t say no. She simply can’t, for it’s the closest she’s come to a truth.

And so the baby is born two days later than expected, and Peggy cries as she holds her little girl in her arms. She’s got Peggy’s eyes and Peggy’s dark hair, and Steve’s skin and the slightest green in her eyes, just like her Captain did.

Peggy gives her up. She can’t raise a child now, she just knows it, and so she allows herself a day to mourn the loss of her baby, and then she visits Steve’s grave next to Bucky’s in the rain, wearing all black and holding a charcoal umbrella.

“You have a child,” she whispers to Steve, and she hopes Bucky doesn’t hear. She has, though maybe having not admitted it, figured him out. She wishes she’d realized sooner, of course, so perhaps she could have spared the man some of his pain.

“Our little girl,” she continues. “I named her Maria, Maria Carolina Rogers, because I know that if you’d lived, you would’ve married me and we would’ve saved the world countless times again, together.”

And she barrels on, narrating the non-existent life of Steve and Peggy Rogers and their daughter, Maria Carolina. But in every scene she pictures, and describes, there’s something missing. The sparkle in her Steve’s eyes, and so she shakes her head and tears herself from the fantasy.

“But I wouldn’t have done that to you,” she confesses finally. “I know I wouldn’t’ve, because in every lifetime you’ve had he’s loved you, and you’ve loved him, and I couldn’t force you to live such a life without him by your side.”

She knows, that if anyone were listening, especially Steve, they would understand.

“Such a life” and forward aren’t needed; she would’ve never made him carry the burden of breathing when he didn’t want it. She was never that cruel.


	3. Chapter Two : A Scientist Steals A Child

The tiny little slimy man, he calls himself Zola. He seems strange, and the nuns stare though it’s a sin, and they almost don’t hand the young Maria Rogers over. But it’s their duty, to care for the children, and that means giving them a chance at a real home.

They block their ears or look away or fidget when she’s taken away, screaming and crying for the sisters and mother to save her. “Sister Addie! Mother Deanna!”

For the slightest moment, one of them, Isabel, she reaches out for Maria, but then she pulls back and Zola’s black car door shuts, and the nuns simply have to stand and watch as their most precious darling is dragged away from them. They don’t know it now, but it’s Mother Mary’s punishment.

When they arrive at Zola’s house, it’s a bunch of thick cement walls and bulletproof clothing and guns, and her three-year-old mind can’t quite comprehend it. They dress her up, and she begins her training. She fights, and she learns how to lie, and then she meets the Winter Soldier and when everyone’s back is turned, he’s kind to her, so very kind.

“Don’t be afraid,” he tells her, “I won’t let them hurt you.”

And he tries, goddammit, he tries. They cut and strike and torture her anyway, and the Soldier’s shouts mix with her screams when they first strap her to the chair, and she forgets the sisters, the mother.

She doesn’t forget him, the way he held her at night. The gentleness of his fingers when he brushed away her tears. The sadness and love in his eyes when he looked at her.

“I’m Bucky Barnes,” was one of the last things he told her. He whispered it to her only minutes before she was wiped. “Remember that for me, okay? I’ll remember you,  детка. I promise, Maria.”

And the last thing she sees when they push her back into the chamber and the cold begins to settle in, worming its way into her soul, is the Soldier - Bucky, she reminds herself - reaching for her and being held back; she decides in her only moments that he’s her father, no matter what.


	4. Chapter Three : A Woman Meets A Soldier And Survives.

Peggy Carter marries one of the veterans that Steve Rogers saved, back when he went through hell and high water for Bucky Barnes and not her. He loved her, she knows; he just loved Bucky more.

Peggy, every once in awhile, wonders about her child. About her and Steve’s baby, the one she had out of love that was made from broken promises. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs to the photo sometimes, and she doesn’t bother to ask for forgiveness.

She’s on the street, away from her husband - the veteran - for just a little while, and then she rounds the corner and there are gunshots. She would duck inside a shop, but she’s all too surprised; they seem to have started after she left.

“Get away!” A man shouts. “Run, run, woman!”

But she doesn’t, she takes what she learned in the war and puts it to good use, reaching into her purse and pulling out the loaded gun and sprinting forwards. The man firing wears a mask, but she knows those cold sad eyes, such a contrast to Steve’s warm happy ones.

“Sergeant Barnes?” She asks, a breathless whisper she herself can hardly hear, and the man turns towards her. He glares, and she steps closer, carefully, slowly, and puts down her gun.

“Sergeant Barnes,” she says softly. “James. Bucky.”

His eyes flash for a moment, she hopes in recognition, and then he lifts his gun and the bullet rips through her leg before she can even say a word.

Peggy gasps at the pain and collapses, reaching down to clutch her leg, and she stares up at the sergeant in horror. “James -”

He turns and bolts, and when the smoke clears, he’s gone.

She prays, with a newfound hope, that Steve is somehow, somewhere, alive.


	5. Chapter Four : A Woman Speaks To A Tombstone, A Soldier Meets A Sister

Peggy, after three weeks in the hospital and two at home, relearning how to walk, visits Steve and Bucky’s graves. It’s grimmer, heavier, than last time, if that is even possible, and she does cry.

“Steve,” she whimpers, and it sounds like she’s begging, almost. “If you’re alive, if you’re out there, promise me you remember him. Remember me, remember her - no, you don’t know her, nonetheless -

“Save him,” she pleads. “Save him, Bucky, he’s gone through hell all over again and I don’t want him falling anymore.”

She pauses; “You don’t.”

 

***

 

The Soldier is awoken from his frozen sleep yet again, this time not for a mission… Natalia Romanova, they call her, and she is to be the Black Widow. So beautiful, so poisonous, so dangerous, so… deadly.

He meets her and she is the first one to be unafraid; his memory stirs of a little girl but he keeps his face carefully blank, and he speaks in a gruff voice when the one who calls herself Madame B supervises. When they are alone, he says things gently, as before - he grips his head and winces, who is he speaking of? What tiny child is trying to worm its way into his impeccable mind?

In the shadows of the night, later on, Natalia crawls through the bars of her cell and over to the Soldier’s, and she’s not frightened when he wakes; his eyes snap open and he lunges forward, pressing a knife from nowhere against her neck, and she just smiles and says, “вы не хотите этого делать.” (you don’t want to do that)

He drops the weapon and backs away, and she knows now what she thought then - he’s not a killer; at the very least, he doesn’t want to be. The ten-year-old assassin shuffles forward on her knees and wraps her arms around him, tangling her fingers in the Soldier’s matted hair and not even flinching when he melts into her embrace and his arms go around her, even the large metal one. She can feel its spurs against her back, and she doesn’t mind. She’s the first.

“Я Natalia,” she says. “[меня ](http://context.reverso.net/translation/russian-english/%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%8F+%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%83%D1%82)зовут маленький паук.” (I’m, they call me little spider)

The Soldier sighs, and his chest shudders against hers, and his voice is gentle. Loving. “позвони мне James… nyet, позвони мне Bucky.” (call me, no, call me)

“Хорошо,” she whispers. “ я люблю тебя, Bucky. ты добр ко мне. они есть не.” (okay, I love you, you are kind to me, they are not)

“дорогая, “ the Soldier murmurs. “осторожно как вы говорите. Люблю является один опасно слово.” (darling, careful how you speak, love is a dangerous word)


	6. Chapter Five : A Soldier Weeps For A Child

Natalia is bright, fast, agile. She is a good student. She listens. The Soldier reports this to Madame B and Dr. Zola, and they nod and jot down notes and proceed to tell him that he will be spending three more years with this girl.

He nods.

They only speak in Russian, for English is dangerous, as they all know it. Russian is just as risky, the Soldier supposes, so after much careful calculation he speaks to her.

“Natalia, darling,” he says, soft and slow, and she looks up with those wide green eyes and it breaks his heart -

Pain. He remembers pain, and screaming, and falling and gold and blue and skin and someone, someone named -

He flashes back and Natalia watches him. “ты в порядке?” She asks, and he nods, but he’s shaking. (are you okay) She reaches over and slips her hand into his, and he suddenly feels grounded.

“Is it safe?” He whispers. “To speak in English here?”

“Safe,” she says, trying the word out on her tongue. “Safe. I…” She struggles to form the sentence, but she manages and her English is excellent, he must say. “I do not know this word, its meaning.”

And he wants to cry for this little girl, and so he does, and he also weeps for a long-lost child; “Maria,” he murmurs, and Natalia leans against him. “Maria was her name. She was five when they took her, Natalia, and she was my daughter. My girl, my little one, my детка.” (baby)

Natalia nods and kisses his cheek. “They cannot see us. We are… outside. I have not been outside in so long, but now I am.”

She looks up at him and smiles.

She smiles.

The Soldier reaches out with his other hand to touch her face, and she doesn’t pull away; she tightens her grip on his metal one.

“Do you see the sun, Bucky?” She says, so hopeful and breathless, and he looks at her smile and bright, somewhat happy green eyes. “Do you see it smiling at you, мой брат?” (my brother)

He nods, having not taken his eyes from her face. Her smile…

“Да.” (yes)


	7. Chapter Six : A Soldier Says Goodbye, This Time There Is No Crying

One year passes. A hundred more girls are recruited to the Red Room, and Madame B decides to grant ten of them mercy. She kills them herself, quick, and painless, and the others… Natalia and the Soldier are taxed with teaching each other about the poisons of the world, most of them inefficient, but they work.

When he can, the Soldier shields Natalia from watching each of the other ninety girls as they fall. It’s not pretty; it’s less than lovely. The Soldier tries not to see them himself, but sometimes he has to. He knows his place; he is a machine, not a human.

To them.

Another year, and Natalia shows no emotion when others are looking, as he’s taught her, in the shadows, at night. She still sneaks out and sleeps in his arms, and he sometimes manages to sleep as well. She is the only one left, Natalia, now, and Madame B closes her doors and any human found within two miles of the hidden compound is killed.

Of course, their bodies are burned. In this country, missing persons aren’t looked for, they aren’t cared about. People run away every day, people die every day. It’s Russia.

The Soldier, a year later, learns that Natalia’s fate is sealed. She is to live as a servant to Madame B, an asset like him. He looks at her and sometimes cannot see a little spider, a harmed girl, but a scarred woman, a venomous creature.

He sees, when he looks at her, a Black Widow.

And she acts like one, she is one, and yet she does not bite him. She chooses her victims so much as she can’t, just like he’s taught her, and he touches her face on the last night and promises that he’ll come back for her, that she is not alone, that she will live.

“я люблю тебя,” he murmurs, the last thing he risks, and she doesn’t allow one tear to fall but they show in her eyes, and he kisses her forehead. “мой ребенок.” (i love you, my baby)

She surges forward, hugs him as tight as she possibly can and buries her face in his neck, and he strokes her hair with his metal hand and she lets him, just as she did the first day; she, the only one, never flinched at his touch. Not once.

“не ходите,” Natalia begs. “Пожалуйста, мой брат. Пожалуйста.” (don’t go, please, my brother, please)

And he holds her, as she, for once, cries herself to sleep, and he stays. They don’t come for him till dawn, and he refuses to leave her while she sleeps in his arms.

“Прощай,” he whispers against her hair as he kisses it one last time. “Прощай, Natalia.” (goodbye, goodbye)


	8. Chapter Seven : A Woman Makes A Call

It’s two in the morning when she wakes up. Her husband sleeps beside her, and she tiptoes past her children’s old rooms and slips on her coat and some boots and trudges out into the snow.

There’s a payphone around the corner, and she makes use of it, dialing the number of a certain building near the mountains, crowded by tiny babies and some rowdy darlings.

“Hello?”

“This is the Saint Mary’s orphanage,” a woman on the other end says, and Peggy sighs. Steve believed in God so much more than she and his best friend did, which was surprising - Steve had been dealt quite the cards, and sometimes Peggy had the fleeting thought that only she and Bucky and his mother were the lucky aces of the deck. Maybe not even her.

“Hi. This is Peggy Carter? I left my child there about, I don’t know, um… forty-six years ago? About… I just wanted to know who took her. If that’s okay.”

The receptionist sounds tired, but also pitying, and Peggy hears, “Name?”

“Maria Carolina Rogers.”

If the lady recognizes the name, it doesn’t show. “At three years old, she was adopted by a man named Arnim Zola?”

Peggy freezes. Zola? He’d died in  1972 … And wouldn’t she have known if he’d taken her child?

“Ma’am?”

Peggy shook her head. “Yes. Thank you. Have a good night.”

“You too.” The receptionist hung up.

Peggy turned and walked slowly back home, a headache starting to protrude for worry.

“Arnim Zola…” She whispered. “What have you done to my baby?”


	9. Chapter Eight : A Man Sleeps, Another Kills Two More

It’s dark, beneath the surface. Behind closed eyelids.

In, out. In, out.

A heartbeat echoes into empty space.

It snows. It’s cold.

In, out.

 

***

 

He’s never hesitated before, and he won’t start now.

“Sergeant Barnes,” the man says, voice husky with pain and shaky with a bit of fear and yet none, and the Soldier grips the back of his head by the hairs and slams his metal fist against the man’s head two times. He drops the body.

A woman keeps calling out the man’s name - Howard - in a breaking, sick voice.

He wants to sigh. Instead he picks up Howard and shoves him back in the car ungently, arranging him as if dead on impact -  _ Brace for impact, Stevie, here they come  _ \- and he lays the man’s bloody head on the wheel. He then walks around the car, and reaches inside the window.

The Soldier puts his hand on the woman’s neck and squeezes. Slowly, bit by bit, cutting off her airways, and eventually she stops choking and wheezing and goes still beneath his hand.

He never sees the woman’s face.

He busts open the trunk and steals the package, then jumps onto his bike and ignores the sirens in the background as he drives away. No doubt to investigate the downed electrical lines; they’ll find two bodies as well.

What a nice surprise.

_ Sergeant Barnes. _


	10. Chapter Nine : A Man Wakes, A Woman Forgets

It’s two days past the anniversary of Steve’s death, and she doesn’t visit his grave this time. She needs to let him go, she knows.  
That comes easier than expected, as she wakes up and doesn’t know where she is.  
There’s a man beside her. His face is peaceful, chest rising and falling steadily. She reaches out to touch him, just to make sure he’s real. You can’t touch things in a dream.  
He wakes up as soon as her fingertips tap his shoulder, and he grunts as he stretches, and she watches him. He notices and smiles, wrapping an arm around her.  
“Hey, Peggs. Why’re you up so early, darlin’?”  
She shakes her head and backs away, “No no no, who are you, don’t touch me -”  
His eyes widen in panic. “Woah, Peggy, it’s just me. Your husband?”  
She stops. She thinks. She knows.  
“I don’t have a husband.”

***

Eyes open.  
Warm.  
Soft voices, cars honking.  
So many people.  
In, out.  
“You’ve been asleep. For seventy years.”  
In, out.


	11. Chapter Ten : A Man Sees A Love, A Woman Doesn’t Know Him

Steve takes ten days to clear his head. Then, he takes five days to build up the courage to ask Fury if anyone he knows is alive.

Peggy is. She’s the only one.

He knocks on her door at eight past six in the morning on a Sunday, and a man opens the door. His mouth opens and closes for a minute and then he sticks out a hand.

“Hi. I’m Peggy’s husband.”

Steve smiles and shakes the offered limb. “Hi. Steve Rogers.” The man nods. He knows.

“I’m here to see Peggy, if that’s alright,” Steve says, and he’s nervous. He hasn’t seen his former lover in what feels like two weeks, but has actually been seventy years. The husband nods, and steps aside to let him in.

As Steve climbs up the stairs, his feet feel heavier and heavier and it gets harder and harder to move forward. He has as long as this walk to decide if he really wants to see her, if this is really worth all the pain it’ll put him through; he reaches the door and knocks, without having made his decision.

He opens the door and sees her smile and suddenly nothing else in the world matters.

But then her face falls and she looks afraid.

“Who are you? Who are you, where’s my husband, who are you -”

The pieces of Steve’s broken heart shatter into a million more.


	12. Chapter Eleven : A Man Begs For Forgiveness Though He Doesn’t Need It

As he leaves Peggy behind (again), he’s struck with the memory of somebody else - somebody beautiful, somebody kind, somebody sacrificing…

Somebody who fell.

He runs; he sprints back to S.H.I.E.L.D. (he hates that place) and bursts through the door to Fury’s office, and is met by a harsh glare from the one-eyed man.

“Where’s Bucky?”

Steve’s breathless, he knows, and so he’s hard to understand, but Fury’s heard men speak clearly with bullets in their throats and so he can answer.

“Sergeant Barnes died in  1945 . You know this, you were there.”

Steve nods, then shakes his head, and forces out, “I mean, where’s he buried?”

Fury, if at all possible, seems to soften. “Arlington.”

Steve gives a silent jerk of the head and turns to leave when Fury speaks again.

“Captain. Are you really sure you want to do this?”

Steve hesitates, and then he nods slowly. “I have to.”

Fury hears the unspoken words -  _ for him _ .

 

***

 

Arlington is, perhaps, the most peaceful place Steve has ever been. Ever since the war, he’s only ever associated the forest with death and destruction. Bullets whizzing past and broken cries as they hit their marks.

But here, the sunlight dapples the leaves and shines in sparse golden bits through the bit canopies, and it’s quiet. Not silent, because that would be uncomfortable, but quiet, with the background noises of birds chirping and soft conversation.

He finds Bucky’s grave with the help of a guard. He kind of loves and hates the idea of people guarding the dead. Let them rest in peace, it’s said, but half of these graves aren’t filled because half of these men had never made it home even to be buried.

Like Bucky, who has a simple white stone. It’s too undecorated, with no flowers or crosses. Steve reaches into his pocket and pulls out his rosary. It tangles around his fingers and he reaches down with his other hand to dig a shallow hole in the ground, which he then places the golden chain and cross in. He spreads the soil back over the patch and instantly feels a tiny bit better - now Bucky will have something from him.

Steve has never given anything to Bucky. Even back when he was alive, it was always Bucky saving him, Bucky taking care of him, and in the end, Bucky dying for him. Steve has never done anything for his best friend, and he’d always wanted to, but never could.

Well, he had rescued him, that one time. But he should’ve saved him sooner.

Bucky would’ve said otherwise, would’ve said Steve had tried his best and that it was the effort that mattered, that showed he cared. And Steve wouldn’t’ve believed him, even with those sad dark eyes pleading him to.

And then, he walks around a bit more. He can’t bear to leave yet, but he doesn’t want to stay at his best friend’s grave, either, so he explores.

_ Sarah Rogers _ .

Of everything that could’ve happened at this cemetery, Steve did not expect to stumble upon his mother’s grave. He falls to his knees in front of it, unable to hold himself up. The family of the fallen could be buried here too, they said, back in his time, and so they must’ve honored Steve with a stone dedicated to his mother. He would feel it if she was actually here, but no, her body is busy rotting underground back in that makeshift field in Brooklyn.

Home. He misses home. It’s been awhile since he’s had one, and he supposes it’ll be awhile longer till he finds one again.


	13. Chapter Twelve : A Man Has Aged

He doesn’t want to join the Avengers. He doesn’t want to join a ragtag team of soldiers that aren’t ready to be part of an army. They don’t stand a chance, he can tell when he first meets them, but he also knows that they’ll survive even if they don’t win; they won’t.

He’s closer with Natasha, afterwards. The Stark kid drives him crazy, and Banner’s all too shy. Though Bruce likes him, Steve knows. He can see it in the way Bruce smiles softly, and looks at him sometimes with that far-off look of his. It feels nice, to have Banner feel comfortable enough around him to stare at him and know he won’t be asked why.

Tony, Howard’s kid, doesn’t really warm up to him quite so quickly. He’s in awe of Captain America, Steve can tell, but Steve’s not Captain America around them; he’s Steve Rogers, the stubborn little kid from Brooklyn that Bucky followed into the jaws of death.

But Tony gets there. Bit by bit, and soon enough he’s confiding things in Steve; “Banner’s so pretty,” he whispers when drunk. “So pretty when he blushes, especially. And I like his smile.”

Steve pets his friend’s hair and smiles and hums in response. He knows that Tony would never admit this if not intoxicated, and yet Tony keeps coming back to ask Steve about how he’s doing and what the  1940 s were like and Steve answers and Tony kisses Bruce in the lab where they work one day and Steve’s the first one he tells.

Thor is… not here. He’s never here, unless they have to fight, and he tends to only be around when Loki’s done something drastic and killed a few people, so Steve doesn’t really know him. He won’t dwell on that though, nor the kisses he sees between Thor and Loki’s silhouettes at sunrise. He remembers seeing men and women alike in back alleyways, so late at night they should’ve been sleeping, and he remembers Bucky pulling him along and avoiding him for a solid five to six hours afterwards, every time. He never asked why; he never will.

The Black Widow isn’t as frightening to him as to others. She reminds him of Peggy, a tiny bit, back in the day when they were both young and strong. She allows him to touch her, strangely; he does but as gently and unstartlingly as possible. She leans into him, but when Clint wraps his arms around her, she sags against him, melting into his embrace so comfortably. Just friends, she calls them, and Steve halfway believes her until they find the safe house with Clint’s sister.

Even then, they assume Laura is his wife until one of the two daughters shouts, “Mommy!” and runs straight into Natasha’s arms, who holds on tight. From then on, the truth is known, and Merida and Noellya Romanova are known to the Avengers as nieces. Steve is quiet though, detached, and his stories are boring compared to Thor’s of mystical worlds and Tony’s ability to create a laptop out of scrap metal, so he sneaks off to the barn and doesn’t move much. He just thinks.

Merida, the oldest child with pale skin and wild red hair, finds him one day up in the rafters. She sits down next to him and asks him about the  1940 s, and Steve cracks a grin and tells her some of the tales, carefully leaving out Bucky and Peggy’s names, and Merida trades him stories about her boyfriend, the genius by the name of Peter Parker.

Later on, that night, Natasha finds him sitting on the steps with a soft smile and she leans her head on his shoulder.

“I see Merida likes you,” she says softly. “I thought she would.”

Steve laughs quietly and shakes his head. “She’s sweet, brave. Clint’s eyes and your hair, and she’s her father’s daughter with her mother’s ferocity.”

Natasha chuckles. “Yeah.”

They sit in silence for a few more minutes until she whispers, “Did you ever have somebody?”

He hesitates, opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again - “Was it Peggy?” Natasha asks. “Or Bucky?”

Steve nods his head, shakes it, nods again and finally covers his face with his hands. Natasha sits up and rubs his back.

“Both?”

Steve looks up at her with sad eyes. “I loved ‘em both, they both loved me. I only ever told Peggy, and have you ever watched somebody’s soul die?”

Natasha shakes her head, dead serious, and answers, “No. I’ve only ever seen the flames be snuffed out as the bullet pierces their skin or the poison reaches their heart. I’ve never broken somebody that way and remembered it.”

Quietly, she adds, “Or cared.”

He hums. It’s silent.

Then, “When Bucky died, he didn’t scream.”


	14. Chapter Thirteen : A Girl Meets A Man, A Soldier Awakens, He Hunts

The Soldier wakes. He breathes too fast, and then too slow, and finally he’s sick on the floor of his cell and he shivers. It’s too cold, and so he hugs himself and curls up in the corner and ignores the vomit sliding against his skin and clothes as he moves. The tears come fast and quick in his blank eyes, and the bile rises in his throat once again, and he swallows them down.

He drifts off with a boy’s familiar voice singing to him, mixed in with the rough one of a girl. Three hours later they awake him, shaking him until he hurls again and they shove him into the chair without a care of the splatters of saliva and chunks of grey now decorating their uniforms. The pulses soon start up, rattling his brain and bruising it are the sides of his skull, and they forgot the mouth guard this time so he just screams and screams and screams.

The lifeless servants of this evil place, they stare silently. They watch him sweat and shiver, convulse and spasm, and finally one steps forward and presses a button, slowly releases it and steps away, and the Soldier collapses back against the jagged metal edges of the chair. They split open the skin on his back and if he were human, he would cry out.

He remembers nothing, as planned and as before, and they say the dreaded words.

“ готовы соблюдать.” (ready to comply)

 

***

 

Natasha, ever since learning of Steve’s unfortunate love life, makes it it her mission to find him somebody new. However, it becomes more of something teasing, seeing as Steve always changes the subject and clearly still has the two halves of his heart belonging solely to a man six feet under and a woman with Alzheimer’s.

So she doesn’t push, but it’s not like Steve wants to live the rest of his life lonely with a broken heart either, so he awkwardly flirts with his neighbor and gets a soft no, and he’s glad. She’s nice, for sure, but too ordinary, as rude as it sounds - Bucky was everything, and Peggy was something else all together. His sun and his moon and their eyes like stars.

He sighs. He’ll never move on from a love like that, and he knows it.

He also knows he’ll try anyway, because Steve Rogers is anything but the type to give in easily.

Suddenly he sees Fury, sitting in Steve’s armchair, and he’s angry enough with the man to be slightly (but only slightly) less than polite but he immediately regrets it when Fury is shot three times and his window shatters with the bullets sailing through it. He drags the man to the kitchen and then the neighbor comes in and Steve doesn’t really even care about anything anymore so he only asks a few questions before sprinting up after the man who did this.

A metal arm. That’s the first thing he notices, cause it’s unusual enough. The second, the way the man catches Steve’s shield effortlessly, like it’s nothing; the third, how sad and black and regretful those beautiful blue eyes are.

Fourth, a red star.


	15. Chapter Fourteen : A Man Is Running To And From Everything

He doesn’t even know what to think. Fury’s dead, and it’s so early in the morning or so late at night, depending on how you look at it, that he’s more than a little exhausted and Natasha clearly knows more than she’s letting on; he puts his hand on the small of her back and hears her gasp. It’s the first time he’s seen Natasha Romanoff come close to tears, and then it becomes the first time he ever sees her cry, once they’re back in the waiting room and she calls Clint. She then hangs up, with a soft “I love you”, and presses herself against Steve’s chest.

He holds her in his arms and she falls asleep, him following soon after.

 

***

 

Steve’s a fugitive now. He’s just running, in a haze, having nowhere to go and no idea what he’s running from. Maybe the man on the roof who caught his shield with those sad eyes, but something draws him to those blue orbs.

And yet he’s running. From.

But then again, Steve has never been as brave a man as history makes him out to be. Back when things weren’t so lonely and he was actually twenty years old and looked it, there had been Peggy. But there had also been Bucky, long before Peggy had ever even peeked into the picture, and there had been so many chances.

The first time they’d kissed. That first night that Bucky hadn’t been able to stop his shivering and so had gently, sweetly, lovingly taken Steve’s virginity - Steve’s real virginity, not his rumored one. All those times they’d done it for each other, had been enough. All those longing glances across the room and that time that Bucky had almost kissed him when Steve wasn’t shaking from the cold; when he had leaned in and touched Steve’s pale cheek and whispered, “I…”

And then pulled away.

Steve had wanted so badly for him to finish it. To fully push his plush soft mouth onto Steve’s in one of those ever-kind and wonderful kisses that Steve craved so much nowadays, and back then too.

That time Bucky’s smile had disappeared almost completely; the same time Steve had smiled at Peggy, the girl who had finally smiled back.

Steve should’ve told Bucky he loved him. He never would’ve had to see his best friend’s scared-as-hell deep blue eyes, as they fell further and further until he couldn’t see them anymore, and now haunt him until forever passes him by.

Steve is done running. It was running that had gotten him into this mess in the first place, anyway, and he just wants to rest, because he’s so tired.

But he can’t. So he settles for a compromise.

He turns and runs the other way.


	16. Chapter Fifteen : A Man Reminisces

Natasha asks him if there’s anybody special, and he thinks of Bucky. He thinks of Peggy, and then he tries to think of himself with the nurse from across the hall and suddenly feels sick.

He laughs it off and makes up some lame excuse that actually pretty much sums it up.

“Believe it or not, it’s kinda hard to find somebody with shared life experience.”

Natasha looks at him and hums, before asking another question, and he can hardly hear it through the voices whispering in his ears; everyone he ever loved.

He manages to answer, and Natasha smiles.

She can see right through him, he knows.

 

***

 

Steve remembers this place.

The base is dusty, abandoned and long since lacking its former glory and hustle and bustle, but it’s still something to him. It means a whole lot to him, actually, because it was the first time in his life he struggled without Bucky (and he hoped it’d be the last, back then, before he learned what a fool in love he’d become), and the first place his eyes had met Peggy Carter’s.

Natasha is doing that thing, the one where she asks a question with an air of nonchalance but she actually really cares. Steve doesn’t let her know that he can read her so easily; he won’t, at least not yet. Instead he answers that he used to, and then runs away from the barracks and towards the weapon storage, if only to stop the flow of memory. It pains him.

Unfortunately, advancing deeper inside the compound does nothing for him. In fact, it only makes it worse, because there are the pictures. Peggy’s beautiful smile and Howard’s self-assured grin, and the Colonel’s frown, bearing down on Steve.

Natasha looks up at him with those steely eyes, “Who’s the girl?”

And Steve considers telling her for a split second, but then doesn’t, instead opting to turn and investigate the draft he feels. He tells himself it’s not because of how cold he’s always felt without Bucky’s arms around him.

 

***

 

Deep in the darkness of an underground facility, the Soldier looks in the mirror for the first time in seventy years and realizes there’s a human staring back at him.

 

***

 

Steve thought Zola was dead. Well, more accurately, Steve hoped and prayed and wished Zola was dead. For a man so hesitant to help a monster like Schmidt, he sure turned out to be an ugly little parasite himself. After what he did to Bucky, though, there was never much judgement that was positive from Steve, even before this. Nobody hurt Bucky and came across as a well-meaning person in Steve’s eyes afterwards.

Natasha listens intently, simmering at the edges with anger whereas Steve boils over, soon punching out the computer screen so as to avoid hearing Zola’s sleazy voice any longer.

But it’s a machine. It doesn’t just turn off if you hit it, unless you hit its off switch, which Steve is not about to take the time to find. He doubts HYDRA installed one anyway - they’ve always had too much to lose. Maybe, Steve thinks, that’s why they always win.

Hopefully they can change that. And not too far off in the future.

All too soon, the shock is forced to wear off. Of course, they’re agents; they’ve never been allowed the simple pleasure of disbelief. Natasha looks up at him, all too scared to move herself, and grabs the drive and lets him take her into the hole in the ground.

The place blows spectacularly.

As the rubble settles around them, the smoke billows and the flames climb higher, they run.

 

***

 

“Call in the Asset.”

 

***

 

_ “No, not without you!” _

The Soldier remembers an angel. A child. A spider.

The Soldier does not know what being human means.


	17. Chapter Sixteen : A Falcon Takes A Man Under His Wing And A Soldier Is Seen

Sam doesn’t really question them. He gives them time to clean up and talk, which they need, as Natasha looks about ready to tell Steve everything.

She doesn’t do that, but she tears down one of her walls for him, and he smiles and in return, tears down one of his.

“You’re pretty chipper for someone who just learned he died for nothing.”

Steve shakes his head and smiles. “I didn’t die for nothing.”

She tilts her head and her hand touches her necklace absentmindedly.

“Then what’d you die for?”

Steve meets her eyes and gives her a knowing smile; for once, it’s him catching her off guard.

“For the same reason you would - for him.”

 

***

 

Sam asks to join in, and Steve doesn’t want to let him, because he’s finally got another person who gets him, who doesn’t want him around just for his title, who’ll go through hell and back for him the same way Bucky used to. Sam isn’t a replacement, definitely not, but it’s comforting to know that he’s there.

So, naturally, Steve doesn’t want to lose him the same way he lost Bucky. But then again, Sam probably has the same thoughts about Steve, comparing him and Riley.

He’s also delightful on the field. Natasha certainly enjoys kicking Sitwell off the roof, though he doubts she isn’t disappointed when they don’t get to hear his skull crack open on the pavement. Steve won’t admit it; he’s slightly disappointed too.

 

***

 

The Soldier is prepped and wiped. The Soldier blankly stares in the mirror at the nothingness staring back at him.

 

***

 

An algorithm. A code to ruin all of America and the world it’s a part of, a list of wonderful people who are by far not innocent but are still better left standing than the bald, whimpering traitor in front of him, and also most of S.H.I.E.L.D., as it would seem.

Natasha wants to throw him off the roof again and actually wait to hear his bones shatter this time, and Sam agrees, and if not for Steve’s mind focusing as hard as it can on thinking of the amount of information their prisoner holds rather than the hate and disgust he feels towards said prisoner, he would too.

The steering wheel in torn from Sam’s fingers and Steve doesn’t even comment on Sam’s language when he shouts, “Shit!” because honestly he was thinking of a word much worse.

And that’s exactly what things get.

Worse.

 

***

 

The Soldier is given a new assignment. There’s a gun on the table, ready for Pierce to shoot him if he needs to, or just wants to, and the Soldier doesn’t feel anything. He hasn’t for years, decades, and so he’s given up on that but every time he sees a little girl, his mind restarts rather haltingly.

A woman comes back, her accent Italian, and she’s obviously confused to see him. The Soldier says nothing, only glares, and Pierce does the shooting and the blood leaks all over the carpet and Pierce makes a passing comment about how annoying it’ll be to clean up.

The Soldier says nothing, as he’s been trained.

He meets his mission -  _ the man on the roof, with the shield _ \- and he shoots and throws grenades and stabs and punches and it’s the first fair fight he’s been in in awhile. He’s the Winter Soldier, nobody matches him; except, apparently, this man.

And then his mask falls off and it all goes to hell. (Or to heaven, depending on how they choose to look at it, afterwards.)

“Bucky?” The man whispers, in such a broken yet hopeful voice, and the name stirs a memory.

_ Kisses. Woman in the red dress. Daughter. Natalia. Poison dames snow falling trains drawings smoking kisses Stevie - _

The Soldier answers gruffly, the first English he’s spoken in decades, “Who the hell is Bucky?” and he shoots.

Then he runs.

As he’s sprinting down the streets, disappearing and getting back to the base -

_ HYDRA. No. Torture. Screaming. Kisses. Who’s Bucky - James Buchanan - Barnes - Sergeant - Stevie. _

He’s treated roughly by the handlers when they find him. He didn’t complete his mission, how could he -

_ Punk. _

Soldiers don’t cry.


	18. Chapter Seventeen : A Soldier Is Again Abused, A Man Tries In Vain To Understand

There are things nobody knows about Steve Rogers, even Bucky Barnes. The little things that he hides or hides behind, in the night or the early morning, like touching the side of his neck just beneath his jaw. That’s where his pulse beats, and sometimes, when you’ve cheated death one too many times as he has, you just need to feel that you’re alive.

He’ll prick his finger with a needle, like he used to by accident whenever he was fixing up the drapes or the sheets back in the thirties, and he only ever does it when he’s really alone; when he’s too desperate and aching for somebody’s gentle touch and instead all he finds is empty air. It heals so fast he almost doesn’t feel the initial pain, but sometimes, if he’s lucky, the human in him - if there’s any left - still feels the lasting tingle of hurt.

Now, he’s tapping his fingers against his neck, counting the continuous beats just so he doesn’t forget, because he’s on the brink of losing it right then and there. But then Sam’s eyes flick up to him and Steve lowers his hand, finally speaking, and he answers all their questions and remarks with one of his one; why?

“Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.”

Natasha knows, of course, though she’s too disoriented to say anything. But Sam, he’s watching, and he raises an eyebrow.

Steve shakes his head.

_ Later. _

 

***

 

The Soldier is thinking.

Other than strategy, this doesn’t happen often. But this ordeal doesn’t happen often; only one other has ever addressed him by a name. One, by a title; this mission, by something much more personal. Much more broken, vulnerable, open. In such a caring tone that it could not be assumed that they were an imposter; the Soldier knows not much about humanity anymore, but he knows enough to sense real raw emotion.

“Who was the man on the bridge?” He dares, and Pierce sighs, his frustration growing and patience thinning, but the Soldier cannot be bothered to notice. He’s too wrapped up in his jumbled head; the brain that is finally aging after seventy-something decades of not.

“You met him earlier this week on another assignment,” Pierce finally settles on for a vague reply, but the Soldier still recognizes it for what it is - not an answer.

“I knew him,” he whispers, and -

_ Falling. Screaming. Blood, so much blood… pain. _

Pierce is speaking again, and the Soldier listens, and then he manages a pained expression - it is a smile. He has not smiled in what feels like a century, but he knows that even he has not been alive for so long. He would barely count what he is now as alive.

_ Red lipstick. Whiskey. Soft pants and rushed kisses. Parted lips, open mouths. Love. Hidden, forbidden love. Loved him. Love him. In love with - _

“But I knew him.”

_ Golden hair. Ocean blue eyes. Beauty. Angel. Baby angel. Baby. Baby doll. Doll. Doll face. _

Pierce sighs.

_ They broke your face, punk. _

“Wipe him.”

_ Your beautiful porcelain face. _

“He’s been out of cryofreeze too long.”

_ I wanted to kiss your painted-pink lips so badly, angel. _

“Then wipe him.”

_ Bucky? _

“And start over.”

_ I’m sorry, Stevie. _


	19. Chapter Eighteen : A Man Contemplates His Three Mortal Enemies

Life.

You’d think it’d be his friend, but Steve has always felt more at home if closer to death. In between those sparing moments with Peggy and her moans into his mouth, her soft skin against his, and Bucky’s whispered I love you’s when he thought Steve was asleep after one of their many night escapades, that they often excused as just for warmth; Steve always denied himself the truth that he saw the pain in Bucky’s eyes whenever they said those words.

Because, no no, Natasha was wrong. Steve hadn’t died for nothing, unless he really was nothing like Bucky always assured him he wasn’t; he’d died for himself. Two weeks without his best friend, and he was already falling down with Bucky into the snow and wind between the alps, missing his first lover’s sweet kisses and wishful promises. They’d said til the end of the line, and Steve was going to honor his end as much as Bucky had his own.

Suicide seemed a kindly option, and so he saved everyone else and let Peggy kiss him goodbye; he’d only wished he’d looked at the picture of Bucky beneath the one of Peggy in his compass, for he already had her stain of red on his lips.

His last words were somewhat of a jumbled mess of confessions. Because Captain America may have been brave and selfless, but Steve Rogers most certainly was not.

 

***

 

Time.

So much of it was stolen from him, but then again, one could argue he was simply being spared the hassles of aging. And he was glad to be out of time when the plane crashed and the ice rushed in, but perhaps, he agrees, that he is glad to be alive if Bucky’s there for the ride; Peggy is ripe and old and aging still, and he loves her all the same but her forgetfulness makes him doubt his own memory.

Bucky doesn’t remember him, and that hurts worse than almost anything, Steve believes, until suddenly he recalls Bucky’s eyes up on the roof, sad and glistening and hollow, and then their mimickers on the highway.

He’s determined to save his best friend, even if Fury disapproves and Sam is here telling him it’s impossible; “He doesn’t know you.”

Steve replies in kind, with a smile full of a confidence he doesn’t feel, “He will.”

 

***

 

The Soldier seems to recollect a must-be long-ago dug-up feeling; he does not know the name for the butterflies in his stomach, nor the needles pin-pricking the back of his mind with a name.

_ Stevie. _

 

***

 

Love.

Steve Rogers has never loved another human being as much as he will forever love Bucky Barnes, nor has he met a living person that he has more adoration for than Peggy Carter.

_ The French, _ he remembers Dugan laughing,  _ such fools in love _ ; Steve remembers thinking to himself,  _ Aren’t we all? _

Only him, it seems; Steve remembers wishful promises. He makes some of his own now.


	20. Chapter Nineteen : A Soldier Loves A Man, Or So He Believes, And A Man Will Keep A Promise

“Don’t make me do this.”

Bucky makes him, as Steve saw coming but still begged and pleaded and prayed he wouldn’t. The bullet hurts, and so does the knife, but it’s not until he breaks Bucky’s arm that he really feels any pain. It spreads like fire through his veins to reach his heart, which it sets aflame, and Steve tries to be as gentle as he can be, as one could be when squeezing the awakeness out of somebody.

But Bucky wakes as Steve is climbing to finish, and shoots Steve in the thigh, and  _ goddamnit, Buck, _ Steve thinks.  _ I just wanted to save the world so then I could save you. _

_ Like old times. _

He pushes through, no matter how much it hurts, the bullet infecting the very spot that Bucky used to kiss and murmur up against whenever he and Steve were together; the very place that Bucky would whisper those three words, his sin and pain and pleasure; for them, it had always blurred, the lines between.

And then, right through his abdomen, and Steve can feel the breath leaving him for the five-hundredth time, but he has to finish the mission; same as Bucky, he supposes. He manages to slot the card into place, and then as things begin to blow around them, he rushes to save Bucky, because that’s all he really alive for, anyway. All either of them were ever alive for really - saving each other.

Bucky takes a swing at him.

“You know me.”

Another.  
“No I don’t!”

Steve is knocked back with the force of it but pays no mind, getting up again, and he looks up at his past lover, the one whose touch he still aches for, and he stares him down.

“I’m not gonna fight you.”

Through the glassless window, he drops his shield.

“You’re my friend.”

He’d never needed a shield with Bucky. He could only ever be himself, or Bucky would make him. Like now, he’s making him. It’s just not quite the same, considering… you know, the blood.

Bucky tackles him to the ground.

“You’re my mission.”

Rage, sadness, desperation; it’s all Steve can see when he looks deep into those beautiful pale blue eyes… no, wait. He missed something.

Fear.

He’s almost asleep with the force of Bucky’s punches, a morbid sort of lullaby; he tries, the least he can do is try, one last thing.

“Then finish it.”

He decides, as Bucky raises his fist for the final blow, that he owes this to his best friend. This time, he’ll scream first. He’ll die first.

“Cause I’m with you… til the end of the line.”

He’ll fall first.

He does. And like the fool he is, Bucky follows.

 

***

  
Sarah Rogers used to sing her son to sleep, _Then again, we are all fools in love._


	21. Chapter Twenty : A Soldier Loves A Captain, A Girl Has Never Borne Such Sadness

The Soldier drags his mission from the river. He doesn’t know why, not quite yet, but he will someday soon; he’ll know what the racing of his heart means.

For now, he settles for dropping the body on the shore, and he stares, waiting until he sees the man cough. Water spurts from his lips, but the Soldier doesn’t mind; he cannot explain it to himself but suddenly he wants nothing more than to  _ touch _ .

He kneels down next to his mission; no, his  _ friend _ , and presses his mouth over the other’s. It’s soft, gentle, intimate, and awakens about a million memories from deep within, of cold nights they made warm by pushing closer to each other and of longing glances and wishful thinking, wishful promises. He pulls back at the rush of black and white images flashing through his head at illegal speeds, and he reaches out hesitantly and touches the side of the man’s face with his corrugated metal fingers.

The Soldier forgets how to speak, briefly, and so he only whispers, “ жить, пожалуйста ,” and stands to leave. (live, please)

He doesn’t look back. He wants to.

 

***

 

Steve wakes up in the hospital remembering a dream. Bucky had saved him once again, this time pulling him from the river, and he had kissed Steve’s lips so softly and sweetly. It felt like a hazy memory, but Steve knew it had to be a dream; as the Soldier, and even as the best friend Steve used to know so well back in the forties, Bucky would never kiss him in public.

As soon as he’s released, he starts his search for his long-lost and sorely missed best friend that was maybe always more, and Sam joins him. But before he leaves, Steve goes to visit Peggy, because it’s hard to know the next time he’ll be able to see her, the next time she’ll remember him.

“The Soldier is Bucky,” he tells her as soon as they’re settled, and her eyes fill with tears.

“You’re leaving,” she whispers, in despair yet accepting; no, not accepting, but in resignation, “again.” He nods with an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “But I have to find him.”

Peggy smiles, though it shakes, and she whispers, “Steve. You have to find  _ her _ .”

Steve tilts his head, brow furrowing as he listens intently in worry. “Who?”

Peggy takes his hand and and holds on, squeezing it tight. Her entire expression is pained and panicked, and Steve gives her a reassuring smile.

“You have a daughter, my darling Captain America.”

Steve opens his mouth, closes it, and buries his face in his arms on her bed. He’s shaking, and so she decides to get it over with and hammers in the final nail with a bang.

“Her name is Maria.”

He cries, and so does she.


	22. Chapter Twenty-One : A Soldier Avenges, A Captain Searches, A Woman Grieves, All For Themselves And Lost Loves

The Soldier runs.

He bounces from place to place at first, wherever he recalls the bases to be, and he burns them down one by one. Sometimes he stays to watch the flames engulf the buildings and to hear the breathless frantic screams and the hurried orders, but mostly he doesn’t. He has nightmares afterwards usually, if he does, and he’s already got enough blood on his hands, he thinks.

This one, though… this place is different.

It’s abandoned. There are cryotubes, like the ones they put him in, and the ones they forced the other five ones like him, who were stronger, into; they started without humanity, whereas he’s sure he’s the remnants of a person who was loved and lived at some point.

All of them are shut off, except for one, and he hears the faint sound of a heart monitor, and he walks until he reaches the edge of the tube. He carefully puts a hand on the foggy glass, and watches it clear as he swipes back and forth.

There’s a little girl in there.

Tanned skin, healthy, long black curls. She can’t be more than five years old; a memory stirs.

A baby girl, three years old… Zola’s new experiment… his baby girl… his baby… his  детка.

His daughter.

_ Maria. _

He turns and sees the buttons and surveys them, and then he catches sight of the only red one; he slams it.

The frost stops forming on the glass and the curved glass wall lifts, opening slowly, and he steps up onto the platform and waits patiently as the child struggles to open her eyes.

When she does, he’s met with the most beautiful and stunning dark orbs he’s ever seen.

A moment of silent passes; the first victim waits for the other to gather herself.

“Bucky?” The little girl whispers, and the Soldier suddenly breaks, smiling as wide as he can and allowing the tears to brim, the first emotion he’s shown beside confusion and rage in about seventy-five years.

He remembers that name. He remembers his daughter.

He opens his arms and the girl tears up and runs into them, a sob ripping rough from her throat.

“Yeah,” he rasps. “It’s me,  детка. I’m here to take you home.”

 

***

 

Sam is tired, Steve knows. He’s ready to give up, to rest, and Steve knows he’s trying to keep going, because if it were Riley he’d be doing the same. But Sam is done and dead on his feet, and Steve also knows that.

“Come on,” he whispers, after they’ve rooted through yet another pile of burnt rubble that used to be a HYDRA base. “Let’s go home.”

He starts that way, and Sam turns and looks at his retreating back, a concerned look taking over his handsome features.

“Man, you sure? We can just take a break, we don’t have to stop looking.”

Steve shakes his head without turning around. “He doesn’t want to be found, at least not by me.”

Sam nods, still not having moved from the peak of a certain mountain of rumble.

“Right. And that’s what hurts the most, right?”

Steve turns finally, stops walking, and Sam offers him a sad smile.

“Come on, man. You know I’m not that dumb, though sometimes I think you might be.”

Steve blinks. Sam sighs.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you and that man weren’t more than friends.”

Steve glances at his feet, looks up, and answers simply.

“We wanted to be.”

 

***

 

Peggy goes to sleep tonight without her husband’s warmth beside her. He’s gone, as gone as Steve was once, as gone as they were on each other and the sergeant for her captain. She thinks of a little girl with deep black eyes, and prays for her safety and happiness, and apologizes for giving her up all those years ago, though she knows it makes no difference to anything but her conscience.

She dreams of steamy nights and desperate kisses, and the wallowing despair of a watching man.

She wakes and wonders why she never had daughter, and also, for a brief moment, about the blonde man in love with the soldier with the metal arm.

She looks at the pictures next to her, and she tries in vain to remember who she is.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Two : A Captain Loves A Lost Man, He Loves A Soldier Too

“You know he knew you. Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky.”

No, Steve thinks. Bucky was never his.

So why do the words hurt so much?

 

***

 

Steve goes to comfort Wanda, but in the end, it’s him who needs the comforting. She’s just a kid, but at least she isn’t broken. Yet, echoes in the back of his mind, and he shoves it away.

“All Rumlow had to do was say Bucky and suddenly I was sixteen year old kid again in Brooklyn.”

Wanda looks at him then, and he knows she can see right through him.

 

***

 

_ She’s gone. In her sleep. _

“I have to go.”

 

***

 

When Steve finally finds Bucky, it’s not him who has done the finding, nor is it under pleasant circumstances.

He’s flipping through the notebook with the picture of him, reading all the little notes; it seems Bucky remembers what they were.

A voice startles him.

“Who is he, Daddy?”

Steve turns around right as he hears the shushing noise, and is met with a girl no older than five standing by Bucky’s side, holding on tight to his metal hand. She’s beautiful, and looks strangely like Peggy, but he’ll dwell on that later. For now, he focuses on Bucky, and how sad and scared he looks.

“They’re coming for you, Buck.”

Bucky hisses and curses, “Shit.” The little girl shifts on her feet and Bucky squats down and picks up a backpack from the mattress, helping her slip it on. He’s so gentle with her, Steve notices, but he makes no comment.

“You remember what we discussed, right? Go to the safe house and I’ll come get you when all this is over. I just need you to be safe, okay? You have enough money for the bus fare?”

The little girl nods and Bucky does too. He kisses her forehead and hugs her; she seems to melt into him.

“I love you, Daddy. I’ll be good,” she whispers, and Bucky pulls back as the footsteps grow closer and smiles.

“I don’t care if you’re good, I just care that you’re safe. Do what you have to do to survive, okay? I love you too, my  детка.”

He then turns and points to Steve, who manages a wave, despite his shock. The girl, Bucky’s daughter, he guesses, waves back shyly and turns back to her father, who rubs her arm assuringly.

“That’s Steve. He’s my friend. If he comes to get you, then I want you to go with him. But only him.”

The girl nods again and Bucky smiles. The banging begins on the door.

“Go. Be safe . I love you, Maria.”

Steve’s eyes widen as the girl kisses Bucky’s cheek and smiles with a wavering expression.

“I love you too, папа,” and she runs.

 

***

 

“You pulled me from the river. Why?”

_ Please. _

“I don’t know.”

_ Don’t make me say it. _

“Yes, you do.”

_ Don’t make me ruin this. _

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight.”

_ Neither did we. _

“It always ends in a fight.”

It ends in their defeat.

 

***

 

Halfway across the country, there’s a knock on room two-hundred-eighteen’s door in the cheapest motel in Russia. Clint Barton looks through the peephole and opens up.

“Hey, Ria. Come on in, sweetie.”


	24. Chapter Twenty-Three : A Captain Starts A War He’ll Finish

Bucky is silent as they drag him away, and while Steve is arguing with Tony, his mind is elsewhere. With his ex-lover, with his ex-lover’s  _ daughter _ ; for crying out loud, she looks like Peggy and has Steve’s kid’s name.

Maria.

She’s beautiful. Brave, like her mother, if Steve’s assumptions are correct; but then again how and where did Bucky find her, and why does she call him Daddy?

Steve leaves Tony with them both ablaze with anger and frustration, and Steve knows he’ll pay for the remarks made later; again, so will Tony. They’ve started something, and it won’t end well.

 

***

 

The escape is a blur. Bucky is fighting, no; the Soldier has returned and he’s raging, and that damn doctor started it all. Steve chases his best friend out into the open air, and drags down the helicopter, and the fire is nothing compared to his overwhelming fear when there’s no ground beneath him.

Wet ground beneath him.

They land with a splash and Steve hears the cracking of glass as the Soldier lurches forward with the impact; he may not be who he was before but Steve still loves him and he’ll be damned to hell if he doesn’t save him this time.

Once on shore, the Soldier coughs and sputters, but doesn’t awaken; when Sam comes for them in the car, the engines cause him to open his eyes.

Bucky looks around, then up, and finds himself safe in Steve’s arms.

 

***

 

The blonde girl is kissing Steve.

 

***

 

Sharon is kissing him.

 

***

 

Bucky feels his resolve crumbling; the memories cause a flood in his already barely-afloat mind, and suddenly he remembers what it feels like to be dying. His heart is in flames and he can feel the bile rising in his throat.

He swallows it down and smiles for Steve.

_ He looks happy. _

He widens the expression, for Steve.

_ Happy without you. _

 

***

 

Bucky is smiling at him, but Steve doesn’t see pride or happiness or fondness.

He sees pain.

He tells himself he doesn’t know why.

_ Fools, such fools in love. _


	25. Chapter Twenty-Four : A Lost Man Wishes For A Captain He Can Never Have

“Well, shit.”

Clint hangs up the phone and walks into the guest room, where Maria is playing with some makeshift dolls.

“Hey, Ria?”

She looks up. He smiles.

“We’ve gotta take a trip. Come on, your dad’s waiting.”

She comes.

 

***

 

When they arrive at the airport, the reinforcements are already there. As they step out of the car, Clint steps out of the van, the little girl -  _ Maria _ holding his hand, and when she sees Bucky she runs towards him. He picks her up and holds her against his chest as she leans her head on his shoulder, tiny fingers curling into a fist around the fabric of his shirt.

“I missed you, Daddy,” she whispers, and Sam whips to Steve with wide eyes as Bucky turns and kisses Maria’s forehead.

“I know,  детка. I missed you too.”

Bucky then nods to Clint, “Thank you.”

Clint nods back. “Anytime, man.”

Steve shrugs at Sam. Sam sighs.

 

***

 

“You get Maria to the plane. I’ll deal with this.”

“But Steve -”

“ _ Go _ .”

Bucky takes Maria’s hand and goes.

 

***

 

He, of course, comes back to join the fight.

He only really follows Steve, like back in battle in the old days, because their main goal is to get out of here.

They probably won’t succeed.

 

***

 

“What do we do?”

“We fight.”

 

***

 

Bucky fights for Maria.

 

***

 

Steve fights for his daughter.

 

***

 

The black cat comes after them, but they pay no mind, until his claws graze Bucky’s back and suddenly Natasha’s on their side. They’re not complaining, far from it.

“Go,” she whispers, and they do, running towards the open mouth of the ship where Maria waits inside, and Steve starts it up while Bucky scoops Maria up in his arms and carries her over to a  seat, buckling her in and handing her something out of his pocket.

It’s a doll.

Maria begins to play with it, moving it mindlessly around as she mumbles things under her breath, and Steve turns to Bucky with an awed grin on his face.

Bucky smiles back softly and kisses his daughter on the forehead, who only hums due to being lost in thought, and settles in himself.

He only has eyes for his -  _ their _ daughter, Steve supposes.

After all, it’s clear Maria’s not just his.

 

***

 

“I don’t know if I’m worth all this, Steve.”

“You are. You both are.”

 

***

 

Sharon Carter places daylilies down on her aunt’s grave, whispering an apology.

The woman beneath the dirt gives no reply.


	26. Chapter Twenty-Five : A Captain And A Lost Man Confess Their Sins

“I loved you, y’know,” Bucky whispers, opting for last words rather than the comfortable silence Steve is drowning himself in. But he thinks he’d rather drown than burn with the words Bucky’s saying.

Steve nods, keeping his eyes downcast. “I know. I knew back then, too, though you never said it.”

Bucky doesn’t seem fazed by Steve’s unwillingness to say the words back; he nods slowly and murmurs, “We were lovers, though.”

Steve can’t help the smile that twitches up the corners of his lips, “You wanted to keep me warm, and I let you, and I loved you as much as anything, as much as you did me.”

Bucky says nothing more about it, moving back to the horrible silence, and Steve whispers, “You have a beautiful daughter.”

His best friend looks up at him and it’s so much more intimate than Steve ever would’ve dared to imagined; the love in Bucky’s eyes that’s his and also Steve’s own reflected back at him. There’s a smile on his sergeant’s face, a soft one. It’s happier than anything Steve has seen of this man before, even the grins back in the good ol’ days.

“Thank you.”

Steve reaches out a hand and brushes his fingers through Bucky’s hair, settling to touch his face. Bucky merely watches him, unmoving, and Steve leans in; Bucky does too.

Steve closes his eyes and his lips brush Bucky’s, their breath ghosting over each other’s…

The elevator stops and they pull away suddenly in jerky movements. Averting their eyes, they lift the door, and Steve has never ached for Bucky’s touch more than at this moment.

 

***

 

Outside, Peggy Carter’s daughter looks up at sky through the glass and the raindrops falling down. Her tears fall silently as she dreams of the mother she never knew.

“Bucky,” she murmurs, closing her eyes and clutching the doll close to her chest. “ Папа.”

Quiet and the patter of raindrops answers her.


	27. Chapter Twenty-Six : A Captain And A Lost Man Win A War They Never Wanted

“Tony, please.”

_ I didn’t mean to. _

“You killed my mom.”

_ I’m sorry. _

_ … I didn’t want to. _

 

***

 

Tony is less than forgiving.

Understandably so, and yet; Steve hates this. He never should’ve done this, agreed to the serum and let Bucky fall and kissed Peggy goodbye. He never should’ve loved another besides the beautifully scarred man he fights for now; he should’ve admitted to his fractured heart and Bucky would’ve stayed home from bars and dames and they would’ve kissed in between sips of burning whiskey and Steve would’ve gone to sleep all those nights with his lover right beside him, and one morning in the winter he wouldn’t’ve woken up and Bucky would’ve wept holding Steve’s lifeless body in his arms, this time forever cold and unwakeable, but it would’ve been better than this.

Steve was never meant to live like this. He should’ve died the night Bucky left, or at least afterwards when he’d’ve gotten the notice that Bucky was missing in action. Their tears have soaked and stained enough drawings and letters anyway; the museum is proof of that.

Their love died with the snowy peaks and came alive again only when revived by a baby girl; war would always be their end.

They were never meant to come home.

 

***

 

“He’s my friend.”

_ I love him. _

“So was I.”

 

***

 

Bucky’s arm is blown off, once again taken from him, and he falls. This time onto cold and hard cement, rather than frigid and soft snow; he collapses and feels the blood slowly wash his hair; at least it’s staining something other than his hands, now. He fights the sleep, the black, but it takes him, and he’s half-ashamed for not doing better, for not being better, but then he thinks of the serum and figures he’ll wake up.

If not…

Well.

He’s had a lifetime of pain, after all. He could rest; he wouldn’t mind.

_ Maria. _

The last thing he sees is Steve; the hazy image of him and Tony’s quick moving feet and blasts of light and he hears the clanging of metal against metal, shield against suit.

_ Stevie. _

_ Take care of her for me, okay? I know you will. _

_ I know you will. _

_ I know you... _


	28. Epilogue : A Captain Lives, The World And A Woman And A Found Man Rejoice

Captain America drops his shield and walks away.

Steve Rogers doesn’t need it.

 

***

 

Steve helps him back to the ship. The panther follows. They stumble sometimes, slightly, but they manage. And as they open the doors, Bucky grips Steve’s arm tighter and tries to pull himself more upright; Steve looks down at him and Bucky sees this one last chance and does what he’s always regretted never doing before; he takes it.

He kisses him.

Their lips are chapped and bitten and their mouths are red with blood; they taste like rust and salt and bittersweet second chances. It’s as far from perfect as you can get, with their teeth clashing and it hurting with the offsets of their jaws after taking so many punches for each other, but it’s - nice.

Bucky’s never gotten to have nice things. He likes this one, he thinks.

He pulls away when he runs out of breath, which he’s already short of, and leans into Steve as the door hits the ground with a soft thump. He closes his eyes and finally allows himself to melt into his best friend’s arms.

“I don’t want her to see me like this. Please.”

Steve nods; Bucky can feel his collarbone moving. The panther boards the ship and removes his mask, and wanders into the pilot’s section. Steve takes Bucky to the only bathroom aboard and wets a towel, turning and wiping Bucky’s face clean of the blood; he cleanses Bucky’s hands, too.

 

***

 

“I love you.”

_ Don’t say that. _

“Stevie.”

_ I’m not worth it. _

“Bucky…”

A sigh.

_ I don’t deserve you. _

“You’re not the only one who never got the chance to say it.”

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut. He won’t cry. He won’t.

 

***

 

Soldiers don’t cry.

Soldiers don’t cry.

Soldiers don’t…

 

***

 

He’s a sergeant, isn’t he?

 

***

 

“I… love you too. I… I think that’s what this is. Right?”

“Right.”

“Then… I… then I love you too.”

A smile.

“I know you do, Buck.”

 

***

 

The panther, T’Challa, carries their daughter in a few minutes later. Steve and Bucky are leaning against each other, their fingers intertwined. They look up as the king enters and their baby girl runs straight into their arms.

They hold her tight.

 

***

 

“I love you, папа. Papa.”

“We love you too,  детка.”

“Thank you.”

“Always, Maria.”

She smiles, the gap in her front teeth visible. Steve smiles back and Bucky brushes his metal fingers across her cheek.

“О, мой Детка… Lolina, Сладкая моя.” (oh, my baby, sweet darling)

 

***

 

A woman finally rests in peace.


End file.
